Megumi Fujii, perhaps the greatest female mixed martial arts fighter of all time, lost her retirement fight Saturday night at Vale Tudo Japan 3rd against Jessica Aguilar in a second round stoppage. Fujii was twice poked in the eye by Aguilar in the first round and sustained a serious-looking injury because of them.
“Mega Megu” decided to fight on despite the injury but in the second round, Aguilar began to take control of the fight and hurt Fujii more. In between the second and third rounds, a ring side doctor inspected Fujii and decided to stop the fight. The fight between Fujii and Aguilar was a rematch of their 2012 Bellator bout which ended with a controversial decision win for Aguilar.
Fujii finishes her career with a record of 26-3, overall. After the fight, the promotion held a retirement ceremony for the pioneering fighter. Watch the fight and ceremony in the video above.
Megumi Fujii, perhaps the greatest female mixed martial arts fighter of all time, lost her retirement fight Saturday night at Vale Tudo Japan 3rd against Jessica Aguilar in a second round stoppage. Fujii was twice poked in the eye by Aguilar in the first round and sustained a serious-looking injury because of them.
“Mega Megu” decided to fight on despite the injury but in the second round, Aguilar began to take control of the fight and hurt Fujii more. In between the second and third rounds, a ring side doctor inspected Fujii and decided to stop the fight. The fight between Fujii and Aguilar was a rematch of their 2012 Bellator bout which ended with a controversial decision win for Aguilar.
Fujii finishes her career with a record of 26-3, overall. After the fight, the promotion held a retirement ceremony for the pioneering fighter. Watch the fight and ceremony in the video above.
(The often scruffy, always inscrutable Alexander Gustafsson | Photo via MMAnytt.se)
Yesterday we shared a report that quoted UFC light heavyweight champion contender Alexander Gustafsson as saying that he no longer planned to train in San Diego with the Alliance team or Phil Davis before fights. “Now I’m in that stage of my career that I will compete three or four times a year, so I can not hold on and go off all the time,” Gustafsson said. “It costs too much and it takes too much time away from my family. It’s simply not worth it.”
Furthermore, Gustafsson said that he believed that he and Davis would soon fight again so, you know…awkward. “We both belong to the top, and that’s not a difficult guess that we’ll meet again soon…it feels better to not train together right now,” Gus said.
Well, Gustafsson’s head trainer Andreas Michael is now saying that the media took the fighter’s words out of context. In an interview with Kimura.se the coach says that the media interpreted Gustafsson’s statements incorrectly in order to “sell” the news. Kimura.se reports that Michael also said that “the partnership between the Alliance and Alex / Allstar Fitness that it will continue cooperation for a long time to come. Thoughts on finishing the fine relationship that the two clubs have between them does not exist and has never existed.
“Rumors of a bout between Davis and Alex is also not [accurate], it is just something the media created out of thin air.”
(The often scruffy, always inscrutable Alexander Gustafsson | Photo via MMAnytt.se)
Yesterday we shared a report that quoted UFC light heavyweight champion contender Alexander Gustafsson as saying that he no longer planned to train in San Diego with the Alliance team or Phil Davis before fights. “Now I’m in that stage of my career that I will compete three or four times a year, so I can not hold on and go off all the time,” Gustafsson said. “It costs too much and it takes too much time away from my family. It’s simply not worth it.”
Furthermore, Gustafsson said that he believed that he and Davis would soon fight again so, you know…awkward. “We both belong to the top, and that’s not a difficult guess that we’ll meet again soon…it feels better to not train together right now,” Gus said.
Well, Gustafsson’s head trainer Andreas Michael is now saying that the media took the fighter’s words out of context. In an interview with Kimura.se the coach says that the media interpreted Gustafsson’s statements incorrectly in order to “sell” the news. Kimura.se reports that Michael also said that “the partnership between the Alliance and Alex / Allstar Fitness that it will continue cooperation for a long time to come. Thoughts on finishing the fine relationship that the two clubs have between them does not exist and has never existed.
“Rumors of a bout between Davis and Alex is also not [accurate], it is just something the media created out of thin air.”
Well, not so much “thin air” as they were Gustafsson’s own words, but alright. Michael certainly seems upsets by the reports of Gustafsson’s leaving Alliance but doesn’t actually refute any of the important specifics — namely that Alexander will hold his training camps in Sweden instead of San Diego from now on and that the Swedish fighter believes it is inevitable that he and Davis will fight again soon so he prefers not to train with the national champion wrestler right now.
If Gustafsson’s coach won’t refute any of the reported facts, why is he so upset? Who knows?
Perhaps Gustafsson wasn’t supposed to talk publicly about his plans before all the details could be worked out. It isn’t uncommon for teams to enter into business relationships in which fighters sign to train with and pay a percentage of their purses for a set period of time or number fights.
If that is/was the case with Gustafsson and Alliance, he may still need to figure out how to fulfill a contract to them and/or pay them fees even if he wants to train elsewhere. Alliance head coach Eric Del Fierro told MMA Junkie that he didn’t know how Gustafsson camps would proceed because he hadn’t been told, but seemed to express optimism that he and Alliance would still be able to work in consultation with the fighter, remotely, as they did before Alexander trained to fight Gegard Mousasi.
(You just *knew* that eventually Seagal would break down and rub some BBQ sauce on those suckers while Anderson was sleeping.)
Not that Anderson Silva is making excuses for his upset loss to Chris Weidman at UFC 162 or anything, but Anderson Silva is totally making excuses for his loss to Chris Weidman at UFC 162. And not only that, he’s using the exact same ones that he did after UFC 117. Turns out, it wasn’t an unbridled sense of arrogance or an inflated ego that led to Anderson getting KO’d, it was his ribs! Three cheers for logic! (via MMAFighting):
It was good that you mentioned this because I was really hurt. Nobody mentioned this yet (Ed note: Probably because your camp denied it), but that’s not an excuse for my performance. It was a below where I was injured for my first fight with Chael Sonnen. That’s it. I was at 85 percent of my physical condition. I can’t talk about this because anything I say can be used against me. It’s in the past. I’m okay-
(*puts on shutter shades* *grabs mic from Silva’s hands*)
He was essentially homeless. He was financially completely bankrupt. I remember I had to lend Chris thousands of dollars out of my own pocket just to keep him solvent while he’s preparing to fight Silva. And his life was essentially in chaos. One day when people know the full story of what happened, I’m not kidding when I say this, it’s like a goddamn Hollywood movie. It’s Rocky Balboa. It’s insane. The guy had nine fights. Bankrupt. Homeless. With a completely broken shoulder.
I’m sorry, Anderson, you were saying something about only being in the B to B+ range physically on fight night? Anderson? (*armpit farts into mic*)
(You just *knew* that eventually Seagal would break down and rub some BBQ sauce on those suckers while Anderson was sleeping.)
Not that Anderson Silva is making excuses for his upset loss to Chris Weidman at UFC 162 or anything, but Anderson Silva is totally making excuses for his loss to Chris Weidman at UFC 162. And not only that, he’s using the exact same ones that he did after UFC 117. Turns out, it wasn’t an unbridled sense of arrogance or an inflated ego that led to Anderson getting KO’d, it was his ribs! Three cheers for logic! (via MMAFighting):
It was good that you mentioned this because I was really hurt. Nobody mentioned this yet (Ed note: Probably because your camp denied it), but that’s not an excuse for my performance. It was a below where I was injured for my first fight with Chael Sonnen. That’s it. I was at 85 percent of my physical condition. I can’t talk about this because anything I say can be used against me. It’s in the past. I’m okay-
(*puts on shutter shades* *grabs mic from Silva’s hands*)
He was essentially homeless. He was financially completely bankrupt. I remember I had to lend Chris thousands of dollars out of my own pocket just to keep him solvent while he’s preparing to fight Silva. And his life was essentially in chaos. One day when people know the full story of what happened, I’m not kidding when I say this, it’s like a goddamn Hollywood movie. It’s Rocky Balboa. It’s insane. The guy had nine fights. Bankrupt. Homeless. With a completely broken shoulder.
I’m sorry, Anderson, you were saying something about only being in the B to B+ range physically on fight night? Anderson? (*armpit farts into mic*)
Welterweights Jake Shields and Demian Maia were in Sao Paulo Brazil recently for a photo shoot to promote their October 9th Ultimate Fight Night 29 main event bout when things got a little weird. Interviewer Paula Sack turned her mic over to both Maia and Shields to interview one another on a freaking roof top or something.
Neither fighter seemed too enthused about the idea and appeared to try to get through the awkward question and answer sessions as quickly as possible. In sly tactical maneuvers that ultimately failed, however, both Shields and Maia asked one another what strategies they planned to use in the fight.
Side stepping and nervous laughter all around ensued. “Haha, I’m just kidding. I mean, unless you wanna tell me. That would be cool, too.” Something like that.
Either having two soft-spoken, humble fighters who are about to do battle interview one another is the a great idea or a horrible one. Depending, of course, on if you enjoy watching good or bad interviews.
Did you pick up on any body language signs of stength or weakness while watching the video, nation? Let us know. We were really only paying attention to the parts with Paula Sack in them.
Welterweights Jake Shields and Demian Maia were in Sao Paulo Brazil recently for a photo shoot to promote their October 9th Ultimate Fight Night 29 main event bout when things got a little weird. Interviewer Paula Sack turned her mic over to both Maia and Shields to interview one another on a freaking roof top or something.
Neither fighter seemed too enthused about the idea and appeared to try to get through the awkward question and answer sessions as quickly as possible. In sly tactical maneuvers that ultimately failed, however, both Shields and Maia asked one another what strategies they planned to use in the fight.
Side stepping and nervous laughter all around ensued. “Haha, I’m just kidding. I mean, unless you wanna tell me. That would be cool, too.” Something like that.
Either having two soft-spoken, humble fighters who are about to do battle interview one another is the a great idea or a horrible one. Depending, of course, on if you enjoy watching good or bad interviews.
Did you pick up on any body language signs of stength or weakness while watching the video, nation? Let us know. We were really only paying attention to the parts with Paula Sack in them.
Former Bellator champion Joe Warren was set to face Nick Kirk earlier this month at Bellator 98 in Connecticut before the state’s commission refused to allow him to fight. The exact reason was not given at the time but speculation from fans and members of the media as to why Warren was barred from fighting abounded.
Some wondered if Warren had tested positive for marijuana as he had during his competitive wrestling days. Even Bellator’s CEO Bjorn Rebney volunteered a theory – that Warren had been knocked out during his training camp and so was not being allowed to fight because of brain damage. Just two fights ago, of course, Warren was hurt badly in a KO loss to Pat Curran. That was his second straight KO loss.
Warren has since been cleared to fight in tonight’s Bellator event and he and Kirk will square off in this season’s bantamweight tournament. CagePotato visited with Warren as he cut weight Wednesday.
Not knowing how else to get into the matter with Warren as he stepped out of the sauna we simply had to ask, “What the heck happened?”
“A big mess happened,” Warren said.
“The Connecticut commission is stricter than most and I had a CT scan and MRI done leading up to the fight. I had three different doctors telling me different things. They didn’t read the images correctly and thought I had an abnormality on the image of my brain. One was telling me I had had a stroke, one was telling me I’d never fight again. Crazy stuff. Another said that I was fine. I was running around for weeks getting different tests done out of my own pocket, my family was scared. It was a huge ordeal.”
Former Bellator champion Joe Warren was set to face Nick Kirk earlier this month at Bellator 98 in Connecticut before the state’s commission refused to allow him to fight. The exact reason was not given at the time but speculation from fans and members of the media as to why Warren was barred from fighting abounded.
Some wondered if Warren had tested positive for marijuana as he had during his competitive wrestling days. Even Bellator’s CEO Bjorn Rebney volunteered a theory – that Warren had been knocked out during his training camp and so was not being allowed to fight because of brain damage. Just two fights ago, of course, Warren was hurt badly in a KO loss to Pat Curran. That was his second straight KO loss.
Warren has since been cleared to fight in tonight’s Bellator event and he and Kirk will square off in this season’s bantamweight tournament. CagePotato visited with Warren as he cut weight Wednesday.
Not knowing how else to get into the matter with Warren as he stepped out of the sauna we simply had to ask, “What the heck happened?”
“A big mess happened,” Warren said.
“The Connecticut commission is stricter than most and I had a CT scan and MRI done leading up to the fight. I had three different doctors telling me different things. They didn’t read the images correctly and thought I had an abnormality on the image of my brain. One was telling me I had had a stroke, one was telling me I’d never fight again. Crazy stuff. Another said that I was fine. I was running around for weeks getting different tests done out of my own pocket, my family was scared. It was a huge ordeal.”
Given the brutal nature of Warren’s losses combined with his lifetime in combat sports and relatively advanced age, one could argue that CT scans and MRI imaging exams before each fight are great ideas. Warren insists that he is fine, however, and of course so does the Oregon commission overseeing his fight with Kirk tonight.
The fighter also says that he was not knocked out at any point during his most recent training camp, as was earlier reported. “I saw those things being written and it was just nuts,” he tells us.
“This whole camp has been focused on my not taking damage, actually. We’ve been very careful and safe and it has gone great.”
With all the confusion behind him, Warren has had scant time to focus on his opponent. The former world champion Greco-Roman wrestler has a lot of respect for his younger opponent and looks forward to just competing.
“He’s a tough, well-conditioned guy,” Warren says of Kirk.
“And, he’s a wrestler so you can never overlook him. I just want to go in there, lay hands on him and put him down. Beating Nick Kirk will get me a step closer to that belt again.”
One recent news item has made Warren particularly happy – The International Olympic Committee’s decision to once more include wrestling in the games. “Wrestling was the first Olympic sport,” he says.
“There might as well not be an Olympics without wrestling. When I was a kid, I dreamt of being in the Olympics. Wrestlers need that to work towards.”
(And to think, if the guy on the left had won, we’d have a new outright champion by now. Photo via Getty.)
October 1st will mark the two year anniversary (?) of the last time we saw bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz defend his title in the octagon. Multiple ACL tears and a rejected cadaver ligament transplant have seen the once dominant champion sidelined ever since his 2011 battle with now flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson. As such, the bantamweight division has been stuck in a perpetual state of limbo, frustrating fans, fighters and most importantly, Dominick Cruz.
But perhaps the only person more frustrated by Cruz’s arduous road to recovery than the champ himself is interim title holder Renan Barao, who recently became the first fighter in UFC history to defend said title twice (via a second round KO of Eddie Wineland at UFC 165). Actually, Barao is the first fighter in UFC history to ever defend an interim belt. Unfortunately, the Brazilian isn’t seeing many benefits of being the closest thing to a champion his division has seen in a dog’s age.
That’s at least, according to Nova Uniao head trainer Andre Pederneiras, who recently appeared on MMAJunkie radio to discuss Barao’s current predicament:
He’s very frustrated because he needs to make money. So many sponsors here in Brazil are not sponsoring him because he’s not the real champion from the UFC. He’s the interim champion. He’s losing money every day.
The sponsors here want a real champion. A linear champion.
(And to think, if the guy on the left had won, we’d have a new outright champion by now. Photo via Getty.)
October 1st will mark the two year anniversary (?) of the last time we saw bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz defend his title in the octagon. Multiple ACL tears and a rejected cadaver ligament transplant have seen the once dominant champion sidelined ever since his 2011 battle with now flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson. As such, the bantamweight division has been stuck in a perpetual state of limbo, frustrating fans, fighters and most importantly, Dominick Cruz.
But perhaps the only person more frustrated by Cruz’s arduous road to recovery than the champ himself is interim title holder Renan Barao, who recently became the first fighter in UFC history to defend said title twice (via a second round KO of Eddie Wineland at UFC 165). Actually, Barao is the first fighter in UFC history to ever defend an interim belt. Unfortunately, the Brazilian isn’t seeing many benefits of being the closest thing to a champion his division has seen in a dog’s age.
That’s at least, according to Nova Uniao head trainer Andre Pederneiras, who recently appeared on MMAJunkie radio to discuss Barao’s current predicament:
He’s very frustrated because he needs to make money. So many sponsors here in Brazil are not sponsoring him because he’s not the real champion from the UFC. He’s the interim champion. He’s losing money every day.
The sponsors here want a real champion. A linear champion.
We’ve seen several message boards around the MMA blogosphere making the case that, had Urijah Faber defeated Barao at UFC 149, he would have arguably been promoted to outright champion by now. Why? Because although Barao being champion would clearly be more profitable for Barao, a well known, *American* star like Faber being champion would be far more profitable for the UFC. It would fuel the already heated rivalry between Cruz and Faber, it would give the UFC an opportunity to promote a champion, etc. Cruz would have been able to cash in that lottery ticket he missed out on at UFC 148, so to speak.
Just an observation.
But there is hope, as “The Dominator” is currently eyeing a February 2014 return. It’s a timetable that Pederneiras and company are eager to see come to fruition. Otherwise, well…
I don’t want another opponent. I want to make the fight happen by February, or I need to talk to Dana to take his belt, because more than two-and-a-half years, I don’t understand. But he said he was probably going to be fighting in February.
I’ve been waiting for that and praying every day for it to happen. Renan wants to fight Dominick.
